Evolved to Chill

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

- Benjamin Franklin

Train for a marathon and your endurance increases. Go on a diet and your body learns to consume fewer calories. Ride a bicycle everyday and your legs become stronger. The human body adapts to the environments we subject it to... and so does the mind. It's easy to pay attention to the environment we subject our bodies to because we can visibly see the effects -- i.e. sitting in a cubicle every day and gaining weight; doing yardwork for 3 weeks and your back begins to hurt; working out everyday and witnessing your muscles grow or waistline diminish. On the other hand, it's much harder to observe the effects of the environment on the mind. I would suggest that these effects, although less apparent, are even more critical to our wellbeing. It is then important to consider which types of environments lead to greater well-being. In other words, what environments should we subject our minds to if we want to be happy? The answer may be surprising.

Back in the Day
What types of environments have we evolved to thrive in? For starters, our brains have not evolved much at all in the last 10,000 years - not significantly at least. We may have evolved lactose tolerance and a few other neat tricks, but no major cognitive adaptations. Not enough time has passed. So the environments we have evolved for are the same as, or at least very similar to, the environments our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in. In the words of social psychologist Daniel Gilbert:

"Our brain evolved over millions and millions of years for a world that’s very unlike the one we have now. It’s designed for a world in which we meet very few people, our primary goals are to mate and to eat, we live very short lives, we never have any interaction with strangers – a very different world than the one we live in."

Chauvet Cave Drawings, 30,000 years ago

Now in the words of evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray: Anthropologists have studied dozens of different hunter-gatherer societies throughout the world. Regardless of location -- Asia, Afica, South America, etc. -- these societies shared many things in common. They lived in bands of 20 to 50 people, moved from camp to camp within a relatively small geographical area, following edible game and vegetation. These people maintained peaceful relationships with neighboring bands and warfare was largely nonexistent. They also shared the following characteristics: individual autonomy, non-directive childrearing methods, nonviolence, sharing, cooperation, and consensual decision-making (democracy). Their core value, which underlay all the rest, was that of the equality of individuals.

Decisions were made by the group so there was no need for a "boss" or big chief. Food was shared and every person was entitled to it regardless of their ability to find or capture it. Material goods were shared, so no one had more wealth than any other in the band. And no one could tell another person what to do - each person made their own decisions. This is the environment our brains have evolved for. More importantly, this is the environment our emotions have evolved for. Yes, our emotions! Embarrassment, shame, anger, love, guilt, etc., have all evolved to serve social and communicative functions.

So this means our brains have been "equipped" through evolution to thrive in hunter-gatherer types of societies with the preceding characteristics. But our current society is radically different from the societies of hunter-gatherers. Are there consequences for living in such a different environment than the one we've evolved for? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, and researchers are now finding empirical support to back it up.

A Maladaptive Society
For starters, our brains do not seem to have evolved for the massive degrees of stimulation we experience on a daily basis. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were a pretty chilled-out and unstimulated bunch. And so were their brains. Let's look at ours... 

One study done on the neurological effects of city-living (marked by heightened daily stimulation), found that city-inhabitants respond more strongly to stress than people living in the countryside. Due to this increased sensitivity to stress, city-dwellers possess a higher risk of developing mental illnesses. The study mentions schizophrenia in particular, but I would bet that depression, anxiety-disorders, and a few others are also part of that mix. Damn.

Times Square, NYC, artist's rendering

Where is the stress coming from? Well, a few different sources. Increased stimulation is one. Social network size is another. Yeah, even Facebook affects this. Perhaps the largest and most significant source of stress, however, is social inequality. What do these stressors have in common? Our brains have not evolved to properly cope with them, especially at higher levels nor for prolonged periods of time. Our hunter-gathering brains evolved for low levels of stimulation, a few close relationships, equality, and a pervading sense of peace.

We do not share food, material goods, etc., in our societies. If we cannot provide for these things ourselves (via money), then we deal with the stress of not eating or of not having certain things. We are not egalitarian either. The United States is among the most unequal of developed societies. New York in fact was found to be the most unequal state in the country.  It's also one of the largest cities. Modern societies have strongly defined social hierarchies where one person can be socially evaluated as having more "power" or "influence" than another. We compare ourselves to others endlessly and this causes a lot of stress we are not equipped to cope with. Wake up and smell the coffee on 5th Ave. 

The Occupy movements come as no surprise. These individuals are reacting defensively to the tremendous inequality stressor. The more unequal, the more stress is experienced by those at the "lower" end of the spectrum. Until the inequality gap is reduced, the stress will continue to accumulate and people will continue to protest. Either that or we can try to sustain inequality and prolonged stress for another 100,000 years and wait for our brains to catch up... good luck, right?

Epicurean Wisdom

So how do we align our environments to better fit the evolutionary capabilities of our brains? Well, we can take a few environmental pointers from our ancestors - have fewer choices, hang out with friends regularly, eat well, have sex every so often, chill out in the cave, maybe draw an elephant on the wall every now and then. Epicurus, the influential Greek philosopher who we happen to share very similar brain structure with, provided a blueprint for living the "good life." A life that led to happiness and well-being that is unsurprisingly aligned with what we know about brain evolution and hunter-gatherers. He ascribed the "good life" to 3 things.

Epicurus, ~300 BC

(1) Friendships: Epicurus made a radical decision in 306 BC based on this idea: he had a house built on the outskirts of Athens; invited a small group of his closest friends to move in with him; and they lived there the rest of their lives. Social relationships are important to us because our brains have evolved to build, support, and enhance them. In fact, some emotion theorists believe that emotions evolved specifically for this reason and little else. The influence of a few strong and close relationships on well-being reigns above all other factors. A large quantity of shallow relationships on the other hand, seems to lead to stress as pointed out above... 

(2) Self-Sufficiency: Essentially, he meant the freedom to live without having our lives dictated by others (i.e. by Jim, the mid-level corporate manager). He went to great lengths to ensure this such as by harvesting and growing his own crops and choosing to live a simple, non-luxurious life without any higher-ups to report to. Hunter-gatherer tribes also thrived in small egalitarian societies with few luxuries and few social hierarchies (if any at all). Simple and equal seems to be the environments our brains "grew up" in. Some more consequences of social inequality... 

(3) Time to Contemplate: Epicurus recognized the value of "me" time. Some peaceful time set aside with little external stimulation to think and cope with the stressors and anxieties of the preceding day. Western societies have placed much emphasis on factual knowledge and we spend most of our lives in school and university learning about the outside world. We learn little about ourselves and our emotional states however. Epicurus was pointing to this need, which may become greater as we age as we are exposed to more of life's "lemons". In parallel, our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely had plenty of time to sit on their asses for quiet contemplation while roasting the catch of the day.

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The moral of the story? Chill out. We don't need as much stimulation as we think we do or as much as we've been conditioned for. I used to want to live in NYC. The lights, the action, the people, tons of things to do, etc. I don't desire that anymore. Our brains show that they've evolved for a more chilled-out life. Evolution takes time, and it's not something that will happen in either of our lifetimes. Might as well work with what we've got.

Besides, there is something simplistically beautiful and inherently human about laying in the grass at night with a close friend and gazing at the stars...